Qi Gathering Powder

Qi Gathering Powder, also translated as Gathering Qi Powder, is a pill used by a nine-stage Dou Zhi Qi cultivator to compress energy into the cyclone that marks advancement to Dou Zhe. This page follows two distinct specimens: the Gu He-refined pill offered as compensation for Nalan Yanran's annulment request, and the later pill Yao Lao refines for Xiao Yan's own breakthrough. They are the same pill class, not one object that somehow returns to Xiao Yan. (Chapters 5–7, 53–54, 59, 64)

History

Rejected annulment compensation

Ge Ye presents a green pill in a jade box on behalf of Nalan Yanran and the Misty Cloud Sect. He identifies it as a Qi Gathering Powder refined by Gu He, whose reputation makes that specimen especially valuable to the Xiao clan elders. Its scent and rarity impress the hall, but its social function is inseparable from the request: it is offered as an apology or compensation for dissolving the engagement over Xiao Yan's objections. (Chapters 5–6)

Xiao Yan refuses to let the pill convert a public humiliation into an acceptable transaction. After he writes the divorce letter and sets the Three-Year Agreement, Xiao Zhan throws the jade box back; Ge Ye catches it and returns it to his storage ring. The Gu He specimen is therefore never consumed or retained by the Xiao clan. Its narrative importance comes from rejection, and later references to Xiao Yan's pill must not be treated as a reversal of this custody. (Chapters 6–7)

Xiao Yan's separate pill

Yao Lao later helps Xiao Yan prepare for his own Dou Zhe transition by sourcing the required medicinal ingredients and refining a new Qi Gathering Powder. This specimen is produced within the master-disciple training arrangement, not recovered from Ge Ye. Its creation demonstrates Yao Lao's superior alchemical instruction and allows Xiao Yan to answer the earlier insult through cultivation accomplished on his own side's resources. (Chapters 53–54, 59)

Xiao Yan consumes the newly refined powder at nine-stage Dou Zhi Qi and uses its medicinal force while compressing his accumulated energy into a cyclone. He successfully reaches Dou Zhe in Chapter 64. The pill is consumed in the process and has no continued physical custody afterward; the advancement belongs to Xiao Yan, while the powder supplies the controlled compression opportunity described for this pill class. (Chapter 64)

Abilities and properties

• A Qi Gathering Powder is designed for a cultivator at nine-stage Dou Zhi Qi attempting to condense a Dou Qi cyclone and become a Dou Zhe. The early narration describes a one-hundred-percent success rate for this compression, though the pill does not replace the need to reach the prerequisite stage. (Chapter 6)
• It is an alchemically refined consumable rather than a naturally occurring powder. Fire affinity, a trace of wood affinity, ingredients, and an alchemist's skill are discussed as part of the profession responsible for producing such pills. (Chapter 6)
• The pill's prestige varies with its refiner. Ge Ye emphasizes Gu He's name to increase the compensation's social and material weight; that prestige is contextual, not a separate supernatural effect demonstrated by the offered specimen. (Chapter 6)
• Xiao Yan's successful use establishes cyclone formation and Dou Zhe advancement. The corpus does not demonstrate that the pill permanently improves later cultivation beyond enabling that transition. (Chapter 64)

Ownership and custody